The armor takes five times the damage from attacks as durability damage, but has a unique way to repair itself. While equipped, it will drain mana from you (slowly at Novice, getting faster and faster as it goes higher to Archmage). That mana will directly repair the armor. Wearing a full suit of the same type of armor will grant you a 25% reduction in infusion costs. The bonus will not apply if the suits are mixed. This is by design.

Journeyman, Master, and Archmage armor all carry additional magical protections. All these abilities get more powerful as the armor quality improves up to Archmage. Each effect will damage the armor a bit when cast. The abilities are on a cooldown, which is smaller as the armor quality improves, so they can't be directly chained. Switching armor pieces will not reset the cooldown, and passing the armor to another player will not transfer the cooldown to that player either. Having the effect cast will drain some of the magical charge from the armor, and it will need to infuse from the player.

If all mana is drained from the armor, it is nothing more than cloth, and will break immediately if not able to infuse (ie, durability reaches 0).

The chest piece will cast regeneration on you when your health is low with a 320/150/60 second cooldown. The highest tier has a chance to heal you if you are nearly dead.

The helmet will cast water breathing for 5/15/45 seconds when your breath is low. It has a 200/100/50 second cooldown.

The leggings will cast water shield on you when you are on fire (for 1 second) or in lava (for 10/10/15 seconds). The cooldown is 135/60/30 seconds.

The boots will cast slowfall on you if you are about to fall and take damage. This ability has a 45/20/10 second cooldown.

Ars Magica armor also has the unique capability to reduce magical damage. Standard armors will not.

Ars Magica armors are also highly enchantable due to their magical nature.